Sports

Temple to join Big East Conference

New York  Nearly a decade after Temple’s moribund football program was pushed out of the Big East, the revitalized Owls are rejoining the conference — and bringing along their potent men’s basketball team.

The school will move to the Big East for football next season and all other sports in 2013.

“We didn’t deserve, truthfully, to be in the football competition in those years. But it’s hard to get kicked out,” Lewis Katz, chairman of Temple’s athletic committee, said at a news conference during the Big East men’s basketball tournament Wednesday.

“When we started to negotiate to come back in, I thought it was just a wonderful, wonderful way to remove a blemish on our football program. ... We (now) have a real football program,” he added. “So we think we’re going to give the Big East exactly what they deserve, and really they’ve given us financially the opportunity to run a stable program.”

Temple football played in the Mid-American Conference last season, while all other programs, including men’s basketball, are in the Atlantic 10 Conference.

The Owls will pay an exit fee of $6 million to the MAC and $1 million to the A-10, with the Big East providing financial assistance in the form of future revenue distributions.